


Everything Costs

by enigma731



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Feels, Natasha Romanov Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 10:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9886418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: “Are you having second thoughts about S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Clint asks, when she comes home from Cairo with a stab wound that’s just managed to spare her left kidney.It’s scarcely been two weeks since he watched her dive through a pane of glass, and he’s started to notice a pattern. The part of his gut that he’s always trusted most can’t quite believe that she’s this susceptible to getting hurt.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the be_compromised Valentine's promptathon.

1.

Clint thinks nothing of it the first time Natasha comes in from an assignment with three broken ribs. 

It’s only her second time out with S.H.I.E.L.D., but she’s gotten the job done, and he’s seen how she fights firsthand, even if he only heard this particular altercation over comms. He assumes the injury is the unfortunate result of taking down a mark with considerable bulk, using her body weight against someone much larger.

For her part, she says nothing at all, just sets her jaw and remains silent as the medic injects a corticosteroid into her side. She’s back in the field scarcely a month later, moving as though nothing ever happened at all.

2.

They’re in Hong Kong, Clint watching through a scope, when Natasha slips the computer chip she’s just stolen into her belt and dives through a closed window, leaving a trail of incapacitated security agents in her wake. The fall is nearly three stories high, but she lands in a graceful roll, somehow manages to defy physics and be up and running half a breath later.

“What the hell was that?” he asks, when they’ve reached the safehouse where they’re to await extraction, the data from the chip safely uploaded.

She shrugs and then unzips her suit, revealing a two inch gash along her left shoulder, the skin studded with shards of glass. “The job was done.”

Clint winces at the sight of the wound, wonders how she’s just managed to spend half an hour on the comms with Coulson without any sign of discomfort whatsoever. Then he decides he doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to consider what sort of training must have been used to condition that particular skill. “You always make suicidal gestures when you finish things?”

She rolls her eyes, grabs the first-aid kit from the closet and makes her way into the bathroom. “A calculated risk.”

Clint follows, not quite willing to let the conversation end there. “But why? You took out security. There was no one in pursuit. Why take a risk when you didn’t have to?”

Natasha takes the forceps from the kit and begins picking glass out of her arm, her face still perfectly calm, as though she might be filing her nails. “On an assignment, everything’s a risk. This way was the most efficient.”

He sighs, fights himself for a moment before deciding that it isn’t worth pushing further. She has a point, after all -- They’ve finished the job with minimal casualties, cuts notwithstanding. He reaches out, palm up, toward the forceps she’s holding. “Come on. At least let me help with that.”

She nods once, hands the kit over wordlessly.

3.

“Are you having second thoughts about S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Clint asks, when she comes home from Cairo with a stab wound that’s just managed to spare her left kidney.

True, he wasn’t personally there in the field -- Fury’s decided to test her dedication on a solo mission, for a change -- and hasn’t been told the exact circumstances of the injury. But it’s scarcely been two weeks since he watched her dive through a pane of glass, and he’s started to notice a pattern besides. The part of his gut that he’s always trusted most can’t quite believe that she’s this susceptible to getting hurt.

She blinks at him, though he can’t quite tell whether she’s feigning surprise. “What makes you ask? I finished the job and came in. With nobody holding my leash, in fact.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, meeting her eyes with a look that says he knows how to play this game too. “But you got hurt. Again.”

She rolls her eyes. “In case you hadn’t noticed, being a spy is dangerous.”

“You seem to be making it particularly dangerous lately,” he points out. 

“I can see your confusion,” she says coolly. “You don’t fight hand-to-hand, you just shoot things from far away. Snipers have it positively cushy.”

He sighs. “Look. If you’re having doubts, you should tell me. Don’t--go faking your death or something if you want out.”

She scoffs. “If I was going to disappear, I wouldn’t build up suspense.”

4.

“I’m going back in,” says Natasha, the moment she steps into the abandoned house Clint’s been using as cover. 

She’s breathless, and he can read the pain in her eyes, but he can’t quite place it, can’t see a reason as he sweeps his gaze over her. The smooth fabric of her suit appears to be intact, no obvious signs of blood or other trauma. He knows that means little, though, and knows better than to believe that she’d deviate from her assignment for anything other than a true emergency. Natasha is nothing if not driven.

“Okay,” he agrees, setting down the scope he’s been holding and turning down Coulson’s voice in his ear. That’s not exactly protocol, but he has good enough instincts to sense that this is the sort of situation he shouldn’t try to multitask his way through. “Why are you out right now?”

She says nothing in response to that, just unzips the top of her suit, pulls it off her right shoulder to reveal the protruding bulge of bone, her arm hanging awkwardly, out of joint. 

Clint can’t help his pained inhalation of breath, has had this exact injury more times than he’d like to admit and knows the agony of it. “Jesus, Nat.”

She wrinkles her nose at the nickname, which she hasn’t entirely accepted yet. “Gonna need you to stop gawking and fix it so we can get the job done.”

“You--what?” Clint is pretty sure the _gawking_ part is getting worse right now, is simultaneously aware that his eyebrows are practically on the ceiling and entirely unable to do anything to stop it. “You want me to _fix_ it? Right here? With no meds?”

Natasha rolls her eyes, gives him her most disdainful look. “That’s what I said. Come on, we’re wasting time.”

“I can’t--”

“If you don’t know how,” she interrupts, “then I’ll talk you through it.”

He sucks in a breath, still trying to choke down his discomfort at the idea. “I know how.”

“Good,” she breaks in again, before he has a chance to say anything else. She scarcely glances down at the ground before stretching out on it, her gaze piercing the ceiling.

Clint sets his jaw and kneels beside her, taking hold of her arm. Natasha grins as he pulls, practically a snarl by the time he feels the joint pop back into place.

5.

“Do you _want_ to die?” asks Clint, as soon as the doctor and bevy of nurses have filtered out of Natasha’s room. He’s not being fair, and he knows it--They’ve just finished replacing dressings on the electrical burns that cover her shoulders and torso, and she must be in terrible pain, but he can’t shake the feeling that she’s brought this on herself.

She studies him, her eyes clear despite the medications Clint watched the nurse inject into her IV port. “Don’t we all, a little?”

Clint sighs, deciding he doesn’t want to consider the potential truth in that particular question. “You’re evading.”

She snorts a laugh. “That’s literally my job.”

“And yet you seem to suck at that part of it,” he points out. “Or you wouldn’t keep coming in injured.”

“Or,” says Natasha, “a lesser agent would have come in dead from the same job.”

He crosses his arms, takes a few steps closer to the edge of her bed. “You turned off your comms. You _let yourself_ be tortured because we couldn’t find you for extraction. Please explain to me how that’s anything other than a suicidal gesture.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Could be a S&M thing. I’ve heard I’m kinky like that.”

“ _Natasha._ ”

“I finished the job,” she says simply, her jaw tight. “If I’d kept the comms on, the team would have pulled me out.”

“The order was to abort,” Clint points out.

She smiles, not nicely. “Exactly. I _finished_ the job.”

“Great!” He throws up his hands. “Good thing that’s more important than your life!”

His words hang in the air, the usual background buzz of the hospital suddenly seeming to fade so that the silence becomes uncomfortable. At first he thinks that Natasha isn’t responding because she’s angry, because he’s managed to push her over the edge. But then the pieces fall together -- all the sharp edges he’s noticed, and the larger picture that he’s been missing -- and he realizes with a rush of horror that she’s silent because it’s _true_. 

“Natasha,” he breathes, unable to find any other words.

She shrugs, wincing when the motion tugs at the fresh dressings on her neck and arms. “Where I’m from, you finish the job or you don’t come in.”

+1

Natasha is curled up on her side, her back to the doorway when Clint walks into her hospital room. Maybe he ought to be angry, he thinks -- this is the second time in six months that he’s had to visit her here, the second time she’s nearly died in the field. Then again, there’s an important difference today.

“Hey,” says Clint, walking around the edge of the bed so that he’s in her eye line. He tries not to notice the chest tube protruding from her right side, tries not to remember how uncomfortable that particular procedure is.

She raises an eyebrow, gives him a look he can’t quite read. “You make a habit of checking on people when they’re hurt?”

He blinks, slightly taken aback. “Um. Generally when it’s people I care about, yeah.”

Natasha rolls her eyes, bristles a little, instinctively. “Well, then I think probably you’re in the wrong room.”

“I heard you called for evac,” says Clint, taking a seat on the folding chair beside her bed and setting down the bag he’s brought with him. 

“My lung collapsed,” says Natasha, gesturing toward the chest tube. “Or didn’t you hear? Slightly difficult to continue an assignment under those conditions.”

“You called for evac,” he repeats, unable to quite keep the smile off his face. “You didn’t turn off your comms. You didn’t die for the mission. You know what that means?”

“I made a tactical decision,” she insists. “If the mission was going to be a total loss anyway, there was no point in my dying on top of it.”

“It means you listened to me,” says Clint, ignoring her. “It means you’re changing.”

“I hate you,” says Natasha, though she can’t quite hide the warmth in her voice. “You’re obnoxious.”

“Yep,” he agrees, grinning. “Also proud of you.”

She takes a breath, wincing as she rolls onto her back and raises the head of her bed. “Is there food in that bag? If there is, you’d better give it to me.”

Clint laughs, picking it up again. “Yes. From the Chinese place.”

She nods once, curtly. “Well. Then maybe not a _total_ loss.”


End file.
